Mr I Ahmed, Counsel For the v Respondent — 2018

The Claimant, Mr John Skoyles, worked as a Delivery Team Quality Manager until 28 February 2019. The Tribunal considered preliminary issues concerning age discrimination, Part Time Workers Regulations complaints, a harassment complaint, a deposit order application, and amendments to the claim. The central factual issue was the Claimant's PIR score, awarded on 23 August 2018 after the calibration process, which led to no pay rise or bonus. The Tribunal held that the scoring decision was a one-off act, not a continuing act through the grievance process, but it accepted that the Claimant had pursued the internal grievance procedure in good faith after ACAS involvement and that it was just and equitable to extend time for the age discrimination complaint and the related PTWR complaints about the PIR score and the absence of a bonus or pay rise.

The Tribunal declined to make a deposit order. It said the disparity between the Claimant's earlier positive review and the PIR score raised questions that could not, on the evidence heard at that stage, be said to have little reasonable prospect of success. The Tribunal also noted that the reasons for the PIR score would in any event be examined as part of the constructive dismissal case.

The harassment complaint based on Mr Robson's October 2017 comment about impending retirement was struck out. The Tribunal found it was a one-off act, that the delay was substantial, that the comment had not been complained of at the time or included in the grievance, and that it was not just and equitable to extend time. The PTWR complaint about increased workload was also struck out because it arose from a one-off teleconference on 30 May 2018, was out of time, and there was no basis to extend time.

The Tribunal allowed a minor amendment to the constructive dismissal claim to add the alleged failure to revise the Claimant's score after saying no improvement action was required. It rejected proposed new age discrimination allegations about the grievance process and grievance outcome, finding them to be new and discrete complaints, considerably out of time, and unsupported by pleaded facts from which discrimination could be inferred.